Subtly in the vein of Dogville or Coetzee’s Disgrace , and invoking the works of Agota Kristof, Un Amor probes ideas of language, alienation, and community through the eyes of a woman who, when brought into conflict, finds herself on the potential brink of deeper awareness of herself and her place in the world. On the heels of a cryptic mistake, Nat arrives in La Escapa, an arid rural village in Spain’s interior. She settles into a small, shabby house with cheap rent to begin work on her first literary translation, with a skittish and ill-tempered dog—a gift from the boorish landlord—her only company. Burdened with assumptions about country life, Nat will enter into relationships with the handful of local inhabitants—her negligent landlord, Píter the hippie, the dementia-afflicted Roberta, the young city family who comes on weekends, the unsociable man they call “The German”—from whom she appears to receive a customary welcome. Mutual misunderstanding and a persistent sense of alienation, however, thrum below the surface. And when conflicts arise over repairs to the house, Nat receives an offer and makes a crucial decision. In prose as taut and oppressive as the atmosphere in La Escapa, Un Amor extends Mesa’s exploration of language and power, confronting readers with the limits of their own morality as tensions mount and the community’s most unexpected impulses emerge. Praise for Sara Mesa: "With short, propulsive chapters, Sara Mesa creates an unforgettable gothic landscape, centered on the mysterious and menacing Wybrany College, that twists in ways that unsettle and thrill. In  Four by Four , Mesa’s sentences are clear as glass, but when you look through you will be terrified by what you see.”—Laura van den Berg, author of  The Third Hotel “The atmospheric unraveling of the mystery will keep you turning the page; the ending will leave you stunned—Mesa’s  Four by Four  is a tautly written literary thriller that juxtaposes the innocence of children with the fetish of control; a social parable that warns against the silence of oppression and isolation through its disquieting, sparse prose.”—Kelsey Westenberg, Seminary Co-op “Stylistically,  Four by Four ’s narrative structure is both dazzling and dizzying, as its perfect pacing only enhances the metastasizing dread and dis-ease. . . . Mesa exposes the thin veneer of venerability to be hiding something menacing and unforgivable—and  Four by Four  lays it bare for all the world to see.”—Jeremy Garber, Powell’s Books “Very few authors evoke a visceral reaction with prose in the way that Sara Mesa does. . . .  Four by Four  sounds an alarm on the dangers of power, privilege, and the self-delusions told in order to hide complicity. A work of high gothic art,  Four by Four  solidifies Mesa as one of the strongest female voices in contemporary Spanish literature.”—Cristina Rodriguez, Deep Vellum Books Sara Mesa is the author of eight works of fiction, including  Scar  (winner of the Ojo Critico Prize),  Four by Four  (a finalist for the Herralde Prize),  An Invisible Fire  (winner of the Premio Málaga de Novela),  Among the Hedges , and  Un amor , which was named by several Spanish newspapers as the book of the year for 2020. Her works have been translated into more than ten different languages, and she has been widely praised for her concise, sharp writing style. Katie Whittemore translates from the Spanish. Full-length translations include works by Sara Mesa, Javier Serena, Aroa Moreno Durán, Lara Moreno, Nuria Labari, and Katixa Agirre. Forthcoming translations include novels by Jon Bilbao, Juan Gómez Bárcena, Almudena Sánchez, Aliocha Coll, and Pilar Adón. She received an NEA Translation Fellowship in 2022 to translate Moreno's  In Case We Lose Power.